Tag Archives: King

It has been mentioned before very early into the Odyssey that there are only seven Trappist breweries in the whole of the world (#7). Six of these are in Belgium, and the other one is in the Netherlands. I was too busy lamenting the strength of Quadrupels on the previous outing with La Trappe (#154), so it’s fortunate I can now spend some time on the Abbey at Koningshoeven. I won’t get time to finish the story, but can at least make a decent start.

It all goes back to the French monks from the Trappist monastery Sainte-Marie-du-Mont in Northern France. You may remember these from drinking the Het Kapittel Pater (#2). In 1880 many of the inhabiting monks had begun to fear the repercussions of the anti-church legislation, and so a few went on scouting missions to find safer ground. One of the monks, a certain Sebastianus Wyart, went over to the Netherlands which had a fairly liberal attitude to religion. There, near the town of Tilburg, he found fields awash with heather, surrounded by small farms and a sheeps cage. This village of Berkel-Enschot called these farms the ‘Koningshoeven’ (the Royal Farms), as they were once owned by King Willem II. Soon, Sebastianus had enticed a number of the community to this peaceful paradise.

Within just a year, the sheep cage was renovated into the first trappings of a monastery, with the first service being held on the 5 March 1881. It wasn’t all good news however; the soil and land they had chosen was far too arid, and with the numbers increasing at the monastery a solution was needed. This came in 1884 when the head Abbot Nivardus Schweykart decided beer was the answer, and thus under the supervision of Friar Romaldus, the Trappist Abbey of Koningshoeven began its first foray as a brewery. It soon became the main source of income for the monastery, and still is to this day.

I don’t have any particular problem classing the La Trappe beers within my Belgian classification. If anyone chooses to argue with me, I will just continue on past 1000. The La Trappe Dubbel is a typical trappist Dubbel – strong, dark, extremely malty and full of spicy Christmas spirit. It wasn’t the best beer I would ever drink, in that it lost its legs a little in the final third, but was a great accompaniment to the football I was watching on the TV.

Pirates (#15), buccaneers (#27), and now corsairs. It would appear it truly is cool to be a seadog in Belgium. Corsairs were more on a par with buccaneers than they were with pirates, in that their acts of piracy were also sanctioned by a letter of Marque. It is from this that the name derives. The King of France during the middle ages sought to weaken his enemies in the foreign trade routes, and thus would legalise the acts of piracy through a “Lettre de Course” – the same thing as a Lettre de Marque. ‘La course’ tended to be a euphemism at the time for chasing down foreign merchant shipping, and it is from this word that the term Corsaire was derived.

The line between pirate and corsair is a fine one, with the Letter de Course giving the benefactor the right to only attack state enemies. Any raids upon friendly or neutral parties would render the crew pirates, and thus almost certainly hangable upon capture. This method of foreign warfare worked brilliantly for the French king, who severely dented the progress and wealth of the Spanish and English at the time, particularly in the Caribbean. In fact, the use of Corsairs also unwittingly had a positive effect on the engineering of boats during this golden age. As the Spanish and English sought to avoid capture from the increasing number of mercenaries, so did their efforts to improve the technology, speed and manoeuvrability of their fleet. Corsairs have been credited with the introduction of the topsail and the gaff rig, and eventually for the designs that led to the Genovese and Bermuda sails.

The golden days of the Corsair had to come to an end, and this was precipitated in 1706 when the Treaty of Utrecht effectively put an end to the Corsair raids in the Caribbean, and although there remained a trend to continue across the world, the change in the French state in 1815 effectively shut down the practice. It wasn’t until the Congress of Vienna however in 1856 that the use of Corsairs was officially ended.

The beer of course still exists, no doubt a hankering back to the romantic swashbuckling age. It started on the wrong foot with the pour, which looked more like pineapple juice – fair in colour and littered with soupy strands of something! It redeemed itself on the palate though, with strong and very fruity overtones. It would have had to have been strong to keep on long journeys overseas, and in the end this effort seemed to have a detrimental effect on the overall experience, which faded from the memory as the beer continued. Like many of Huyghe’s brews outside the Delirium range, this is more a white elephant !

If you studied 16th century history you may know Keizer Karel or Charles Quint by a different name – Emperor Charles V. His realm was so large at one point that it was popularly described as one in which the sun never sets – in actual fact it spanned almost four million square kilometres. He was notably the most powerful man in the world during the mid 1600s as both the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, and all her foreign lands. Why then was this leading figure of world history so associated with Belgian beer?

The answer lies in his heritage. He was born in 1500 in Ghent and was brought up in Mechelen, Brussels and Leuven – all fiercely proud Flemish cities, and at the age of just six, he inherited his father’s territories of the lowlands and Franche-Comte. His Aunt Margaret acted as regent until he was 15 years old, and Charles then took over in full force, adding a number of new territories to a new unified lowlands of which he was the ruler – this included his birthplace of Flanders, levered away from the French. Although he spent the majority of his time in Spain and her outlying lands, his heart was always in the place of his birth, and he ensured a unified nation for his heirs when he eventually abdicated in 1556 and then passed away in 1558.

The brewers Haacht have celebrated the reign of Charles Quint through two beers which symbolise the power of his Empire. This Keizer Karel Blonde symbolises the pure morning light of the rising of the sun on one side of his realm, while the Keizer Karel Rouge (#134) represents the ruby red of the warm evening shimmer as the sun sets on the other. There are other stories about good old Charles Quint, and I will save them for later as it isn’t just Haacht who celebrate this man on a beer label – some go much much further.

Good little beer this. Actually drunk a couple of months after the best before date but still tasted remarkably fresh. A great strong fruity aroma on opening, and a very clear pale golden pour with barely any head. What looked slightly insipid initially was eventually very pleasant on the tastebuds with the 8.5% clearly evident. Fruity and sweet with undertones of vanilla ice-cream, this went down far too well. I Just wish I’d had another waiting in the fridge.